


One King to Another

by LouPF



Series: Walking in Starlit Fields (and Memories) [2]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst with a Happy Ending, Battle of Five Armies - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, M/M, i dont really know what to call this hm, i guess??, the bagginshield is like two lines yall dont get your hopes up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-23 21:27:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20229004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LouPF/pseuds/LouPF
Summary: Thranduil and Bard talk after the battle. Thranduil offers wine, and maybe a little bit more - but he doesn't expect Bard to understand that other offer. It's offered in quite an elvish way, after all. Bard is probably more surprised than Thranduil when he does understand.





	One King to Another

Thranduil is intrigued by King Bard the Dragonslayer from the first moment he lies eyes on him. Already that first glance, with the people of Laketown freezing and starving and yearning, King Bard holds his head high and divides comfort and strength among his subjects. He isn’t an official King yet, of course, but Thranduil knows, in his heart, that there’s nothing Bard is but a true and gentle ruler.

He goes to Dale with food and provisions and watches as the relief bleeds into Bard’s expression, so raw and honest and _mortal_. It fascinates Thranduil to degrees he’d rather not think about.

They talk little during the siege of Erebor, except for when they stand side by side as matching allies, Bard dark where Thranduil is light, warm where he is cold. Yet, when Oakenshield fires an arrow at their feet, mere inches away from piercing Bard’s soft, vulnerable chest, it’s almost as though Thranduil himself is shot.

During the battle against the orcs, Thranduil never strays far from Bard’s side. He’s not close enough for anyone else to notice what he’s doing, but his eyes are elven and his hearing excellent. Close, to a mortal, is not the same as close to an Elf.

Afterwards, he aches. He stares at the battlefield, littered with empty bodies and aches. No tears leave his eyes, but only through force of will, and his heart wails when his body cannot.

Bard steps up beside him. He’s wearing that cloak Thranduil had seen him spin in – the battered old cloak that somehow looks good on him nonetheless. It’s splattered in blood.

“How do you do it?” Thranduil asks, pressing a single finger to his chest, pressing, pressing, as though he can press through his flesh and muscle and bones to squeeze around his heart, shushing its wailing. “How do you…” he trails off. Lingers.

The words hang in the air between them.

“We don’t,” says Bard, and Thranduil brushes his fingers along Bard’s sleeve. His chest aches again – differently this time. “We just live.”

And Bard’s fingers touch his, gently, lightly, as delicate as any elven carving.

Thranduil’s breath catches in his throat as though caught on cobweb.

“Come, now,” says Bard, moving his hand, shifting away. Thranduil shivers. “There are many injured.”

“Between both our people,” Thranduil says. The words are spoken far away, falling from numb lips.

Bard looks at him in a way no one has ever looked at him before. Thranduil can’t pinpoint it. It’s just… new. He shivers again. “Yes,” Bard agrees somberly. “Both our people.”

He turns and walks away.

Thranduil follows.

Right now, he thinks he might follow Bard anywhere.

Thranduil doesn’t count his fallen. He has no need to; he takes a single look on his remaining forces and _knows _the ones missing. He names them all, and his soldiers bend their necks – not to him, but to the lost ones. After, he sits in his tent and pours the best elven wine he can find into the tallest glass he owns.

“Your Majesty,” Mahania, the guard, says. “King Bard enquires after you.”

Thranduil sets down his glass. “Send him in,” he says.

Bard strides into the tent. He’s changed clothes – just as battered, just as worn, but far less blood. His eyes fall on the glass Thranduil still cradles in his hand. “You alright?” he asks.

Thranduil stares at him for a long moment. Bard, like all mortals, bears his emotions on his sleeve. Perhaps he thinks he hides them well – and others might agree – but Thranduil is not like _others_. “Sit,” he says, gesturing for the chair opposite of his own. “You are not.”

He doesn’t ask before pouring a glass of wine for Bard, as well. Bard eyes it warily. “There are wounded,” he tries.

“Drink sparsely,” Thranduil says. _You are among them_, he thinks and thinks loudly, but the words do not pass his lips. “The taste is exquisite. That is all there is to it.”

It’s poor leadership to get drunk on a battlefield when his army and allies require his assistance. _Good _wine does not equal _strong _wine.

“Alright,” Bard mutters, taking the glass with clumsy fingers.

Thranduil eyes his hands over the rim of his own glass. They’re broad things, dirtied and wounded from the battle. Perhaps from many more battles before this, as well.

But Thranduil has seen him fight. Where his hands are broad, they are also nimble.

They sit in silence for a moment. It’s perhaps the most comforting silence Thranduil has ever sat in.

“Your Majesty,” Bard begins, but Thranduil shuts him up with a snap of his fingers.

“Thranduil,” he interrupts smoothly. Bard blinks, and Thranduil allows a slow, languid smile onto his lips. “One king… to another.”

Bard frowns. “I’m yet to be king.”

“Changes nothing,” says Thranduil. “You must have heard your people, yes? King Bard the Dragonslayer.”

Bard puts down his glass and turns his dark, dark eyes on Thranduil. “And you?” he asks. “What do you think of that?”

Thranduil folds one leg over the other. His robes, silken and smooth, part over his thigh, revealing the evening blue cotton of his trousers. He notes, pleased, that Bard’s gaze is drawn to the colour like a moth to a flame. “I think,” Thranduil drawls, “it’s very accurate indeed.”

There’s colour in Bard’s cheeks when he looks up once again. “Your – Thranduil,” he says, “there is much to do now that the battle is over.” Thranduil nods. “When do you return to Mirkwood?”

“Ah.” Thranduil shifts again, moving his leg and placing a hand on the table before him. His skin is terrifyingly bare. He hasn’t been able to wear his usual rings and bracelets since they were bloodied. Bard’s gaze lingers on his hand for a brief moment, and Thranduil knows he’s noticed. “My people will return to _Greenwood_,” – and here he adds a sharp look; Bard turns bright red – “once the people of Dale are secured safely.”

Bard clears his throat. “Apologies,” he says. “I have always heard it be called Mirkwood – I was not aware it bore another name.” He tilts his head in an absolutely _glorious _way, his tangled hair cascading down his back, eyes gleaming in the lantern light. “Do we have your alliance, still?”

“Of course,” Thranduil blurts, before he can think – before he has time to hesitate. “Greenwood stands by her friends. Dale was once a flourishing city.” He inclines his head. “I would like to see her returned to her former glory.”

Bard closes his eyes. The relief oozes off him. “Thank you, my Lord,” he whispers.

The words whispered like that send shivers like newly fallen raindrops down Thranduil’s back. “Thranduil,” he corrects him nonetheless, for however nice it is to be called _Lord _it’s infinitely nicer to hear his _name _fall from those lips, spoken with that voice.

“Thank you,” Bard repeats, “_Thranduil_.”

“Perfect,” Thranduil says, and if his voice lowers in a purr, Bard doesn’t seem to mind.

*

It doesn’t take long before Oakenshield wakes from his wound-induced rest. He’s helped into Thranduil’s tent – it’s closer than his own – and they have a long-needed meeting. While the sickness plaguing Durin’s line has lifted from Oakenshield’s mind, they still disagree over quite many things. The only reason Thranduil remains calm is Bard, dark in his peripheral vision and warm by his shoulder. The hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, lingers by Oakenshield’s side for likely the same reason. Thranduil’s eyes, keen as ever, zeroes in on the dwarven bead dangling from the hobbit’s curls. Courting, or betrothed. He wants to smile. _Partially _the same reason, then.

They gain peace. Oakenshield offers the mountain to the people of both Dale and Greenwood, and although Thranduil declines as politely as he can – sleeping in dwarven caves! His elves! Not while the stars still shine – Bard’s voice trembles with gratitude when he accepts.

After the meeting, when Oakenshield leaves, Bard collapses into Thranduil’s side with choked relief.

Thranduil stares down at him in surprise. His heart beats circles around him, too fast for him to quite keep up with. He had not expected Bard to accept so fast – nay, had not even expected Bard to understand quite what Thranduil was offering.

Thranduil sinks his fingers into Bard’s mane of dark hair and smiles.

He might still not understand, he reminds himself. He has time. He won’t jump to conclusions.

“Shelter,” Bard whispers. “He gave us shelter. I was afraid… I thought we might not last the winter.”

Thranduil threads his fingers through Bard’s hair. It’s coarser than elven. Of course, it is. “Greenwood will offer food,” he says, “as much as we can spare. For Dale and Erebor both.”

And Bard’s hands, who had snuck around his waist to rest on his hip, tighten around the cloth there.

“You will survive,” Thranduil says, placing his other hand atop Bard’s. His skin is warm. “You will flourish.”

Bard turns his hand and tangles their fingers. “I feel I don’t have much of a choice,” he mutters. There’s humour in his tone.

“You don’t,” Thranduil replies smugly.

Bard’s chuckle reverberates through Thranduil’s body.


End file.
